Schools change language offerings
By BRENDA SOMMER bsommer@leader-news.com

The German program at El Campo High School will come to an end after ECISD trustees agreed unanimously to allow the curriculum change, one of three approved Tuesday night.

At their regular board meeting, trustees were asked to approve ECHS Principal Rich DuBroc's recommendation to eliminate German as a language offering, after the school failed to find a replacement for long-time German instructor Paul Soechting, who retired in May.

The district, which took on no new German students this year, will continue to offer German III for the 2008-2009 school year in an electronic virtual classroom through the Region IV Education Service Center. That allows the students currently enrolled in German II to complete the foreign language requirements for the Distinguished Achievement Graduation Plan. By doing so, those students fulfill the foreign language requirement at most universities.

"They're doing well" with the distance learning course, Du- Broc told trustees.

"Of course, they'd rather have a teacher in the room, but they're doing well," he said.

DuBroc said he hopes to find a French teacher who can also fill in teaching Spanish, the high school's only other language offering.

If they cannot, he and Superintendent Mark Pool said students can always take a language via distance learning or independent studies.

"Students in Texas should learn Spanish, but we have students who are already fluent in Spanish who could learn a third language," Pool said.

As well, trustees agreed to include a Beginning Conversational Spanish class at Myatt Elementary for students in kindergarten and first grade.

The program would consist of two 30-minute sessions each week, taught by a bilingual instructional aide already on staff.

Some trustees asked if a certified teacher would be required to teach the course. Myatt Principal Liz Graves said the course, which won't be graded or interfere with teachers' instructional time, is meant simply to familiarize little ones with basics like days of the week, simple greetings and colors.

"This is an enrichment thing," Trustee Melissa Erwin said. "This is not trying to have kindergartners fluent in a year."

DuBroc also will be adding Math Independent Study to the high school curriculum to give students who have completed Algebra I, Geometry and Algebra II the opportunity to earn college credit in either College Statistics or College Trigonometry.